Goodwill Hunting and Amazon Expeditions - Seaman and Alien Front Online

I'll give you a minute to laugh at the title.

Seaman is one of the strangest and most interesting titles the Dreamcast ever had.  It's a take on the "virtual pet" genre, only the pet you're taking care of is a talking fish with the face of a man.  Creepy?  Absolutely.

When I found this game hiding in the audio CD bin at Goodwill, my initial reaction was to leave it behind.  After all, it requires the Dreamcast microphone, which generally goes for about $25 by itself.  A copy of Seaman with the mic generally runs from $30-40.  It'd still be a deal, but I'm a cheap-ass collector.

When I found it, still in the CD bin on a color tag sale day ($2!), I gave in and took it home.

So began the quest to find a cheap microphone.  Ebay and Amazon yielded the expected prices, and nothing popped up on Craigslist.  Before I got the chance to check into any local game stores, I remembered that Seaman wasn't the only game that released with the Dreamcast microphone.

Alien Front Online - it's cheap and fun.

The above copy of Alien Front Online, complete and boxed, came from a seller on Amazon.com.  $7.98 shipped.

Apparently, even though it's a great game and includes a hard-to-find peripheral for a system that's slowly sinking into obscurity, these are dirt cheap.  As of this posting, a factory sealed copy of this game is only $13 on Amazon.  Personally, I recommend striking while the iron is hot if you're a Dreamcast collector in need of a mic.

  

Goodwill Hunting - Sega Dreamcast

I've missed you so, little grey box.

Was it piracy that killed the Sega Dreamcast?  Was it the result of a number of terrible decisions on Sega's part?  That argument may go on unresolved forever, but the fact remains that the Dreamcast was home to a serious number of instant classics; far more than you'd think, considering its lifespan.  As it was a home version of the popular Naomi arcade hardware, it just made sense for arcade developers to release their home versions here - which is why several games appeared for the Dreamcast after it was pronounced dead by Sega.

The Dreamcast holds a great - though short - chapter in video game history, which is why I was sad to let mine go back when I needed to sell everything.

But hey, now it's back.  For $12.99, I've got a complete Dreamcast with 2 controllers.  Sadly, no VMUs or games as yet, but we'll get there.

Sega Dreamcast Console at Amazon.com